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Kate Wells

Kate Wells is an award-winning reporter who covers politics, education, public policy and just about everything in between for Iowa Public Radio, and is based in Cedar Rapids. Her work has aired on NPR's Morning Edition, All Things Considered and Weekend Edition. She's also contributed coverage to WNYC in New York, Harvest Public Media, Austin Public Radio (KUT) and the Texas Tribune. Winner of the 2012 regional RTDNA Edward R. Murrow Award and NBNA Eric Sevareid Award for investigative reporting, Kate came to Iowa Public Radio in 2010 from New England. Previously, she was a news intern for New Hampshire Public Radio.

Kate graduated with honors from Principia College in 2010, where she studied comparative religion and political science.

In Detroit six years ago, 11,000 untested rape kits were found in an abandoned police storage unit.

Since then, most of those kits have been sent to crime labs for testing. Prosecutors say the initial results point to at least 188 serial rapists. Often the same DNA shows up in multiple rape kits, or matches DNA in other state databases. But investigating all the results will take millions of dollars the city says it just doesn't have.

In Iowa, President Obama's re-election campaign is already in gear, with staff and volunteers on the ground.

The Obama campaign hopes its head start over the campaign of Republican Mitt Romney — who until recently had been focused on fending off GOP opponents — will make the difference in November in this swing state.

The Obama campaign headquarters in Des Moines is a former Blockbuster Video store, where this week a couple of dozen 20-somethings tapped away at laptops, painted signs by hand and worked the phones.